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pas By Laura Beach PhotograPhy by gavin ashworth Fig. 2. Natural light floods the liv- ing room area. The c. 1841 por- banal trait of Lucretia Bruce Blamire above the fireplace is a family heirloom. Below it is Running Rabbit, c. 1940, by Bill Traylor (c. 1854–1949). To the right of the portrait is 50 Years (Reversed) by George Widener (1962–), a 2008 pen-and-ink drawing on paper napkins. Near the ceiling is a 1984 enamel on Masonite painting of horses by William L. Hawkins (1895–1990). Among the works to the left of the fireplace are two mixed-media mobiles by Emery Blagdon (1907–1986), both c. 1956–1984; the skeletal Discrimi- nation and Electricity by Thorn- ton Dial Sr. (1928–), 1992 (near the ceiling); and an untitled black and white cityscape by Ken Grimes (1947–), c. 2004. A recent acquisition, at far left, beside the window, is a 2011 mixed-media White Tower by Sylvain Corentin (1962–). Monty Blanchard, president of the American Folk Art Museum, and Leslie Tcheyan radiate enthusiasm for everything of quality in folk self-taught, and outsider art Fig. 1. Called Monty and Che by hey met again on a Manhattan bus Madison Avenue atelier L’Artigiano, had their friends, collectors Edward V. years after they first knew each merged households, exchanging apartments Blanchard Jr. and Leslie Tcheyan other from the Chapin School, in the East 90s for a loft in Tribeca. Their among a few favorite things. The T mixed-media red chair is by Willie where their children were friends. Between requirements were few but precise: plenty Leroy Elliott Jr. (1943–), 1989. At them they have five daughters, the young- of light, not direct. And walls, preferably the left is Melancholy Che, La Ha- est then still in college. By 2010 Edward tall and bare. “We walked into this big, bana, Cuba, a 1964 gelatin silver Vermont Blanchard Jr., a financier who empty space and it was pretty fantastic,” print by Rodrigo Moya ( 1934–). serves as president of the American Folk Tcheyan says, remembering how sunshine Art Museum board, and Leslie Tcheyan, a spilled from large west- and north-facing free-spirited jeweler and owner of the windows onto the expanse of wooden floor. “There are people looking at this material who never thought about folk art. They are fascinated by its excitement and energy. It resonates as something new, fresh and meaningful.” ménage are struck by the eclecticism of what they see. Dozens of artists jostle for attention in large and small works of every description and all mediums. Sculpture gathers atop partitions and collects in shelves, compelling closer inspection. “Monty has an adventurous eye,” says Frank Maresca of Ricco-Maresca Gallery, who met Blanchard and his late wife, Anne Hill Blanchard, thirty years ago. The new York dealer especially admires Dust Bowl Collage by William L. Hawkins, an elegiac tour de force in black and gray that is among roughly eighty works that the Blanchards gave the Fig. 4. Seal Space Dwelling (number “1000 and 381”) by American Folk Art Museum in 1998 (Fig. 10). The Howard Finster (1916– broadly diverse selection of twentieth-century self- 2001), before 1984. Paint on taught art includes important examples by, among glass, mirrors, and found ma- others, Adolf Wölfli (1864–1930), Bill Traylor, James terials; height 24 ½, width 8, Castle (1899–1977), Bessie Harvey (1929–1994), depth 8 ½ inches. and Morton Bartlett (1909–1993), a new England isolate whose eroticized sculptures of children fracture norman Rockwell’s saccharine homilies. Thoughtful and precise, Blanchard has a way of penetrating a piece, div- ing beneath its superficial attributes to gauge its emotional essence. Of Bartlett, he says, “He is challenging but also true and deep. We recognized his work as unique, an individual expression that is, in fact, artistic.” “Outsider art has an immediacy Fig. 3. The couple designed the L-shaped display unit that hree years into their domestic project, of discovery. The installation offers fresh evidence that appeals to me. it’s unfiltered, divides the great room. Two c. 1990 painted concrete busts Monty and Che, as friends know them, oc- that collecting itself is a creative exercise. unmodulated,” Blanchard explains. by North Carolina artist Vernon Burwell (1916–1990) in- cupy the space well. They are unassuming and From floor to ceiling, the salon-style hanging Among the collectors he most admires clude, on the slant-front desk, a self-portrait, and, on the T direct, their unvarnished candor startling in two who fills every inch, imparting the feeling of an old-time are Philadelphia modernist Dr. Albert shelf above, right, the abolitionist Sojourner Truth. On the C. Barnes, for his progressive taste same shelf is an unfired clay and mixed-media bust of Abra- have known life at its glossiest. Having attained much cabinet of curiosities or even, perhaps, a fecund ham Lincoln, 1988, envisioned as an African-American by they require less, their newly streamlined lives breez- environment of the sort created by self-taught and intuitive approach to display; James “Son” Thomas (1926–1993). On the floor at the left ily in sync with lower Manhattan’s youthful, caffein- artists such as Howard Finster, who devised his and Herbert Waide Hemphill Jr., an is Untitled [Woman Leaning] in cement and stone by Nek ated vibe. “Ce n’est pas banal,” Tcheyan’s French Paradise Garden on four acres in rural Georgia. American Folk Art Museum found- Chand (1924–), 1984. Above the side table to the right mother exclaimed the first time she saw their new “it’s not a mechanical process. We spend a lot of er who stimulated interest in self-taught hangs the colorful crayon, pen, and pencil on paper Sum- place. The name stuck. Down to the couple’s statio- time arranging. it’s very satisfying when it works,” art with his vanguard 1970 exhibition mer Time by Nellie Mae Rowe (1900–1982), c. 1979. The nery, it’s been Pas Banal ever since. says Blanchard, who elicits an orchestrated perfor- Twentieth Century Folk Art and 1974 painted and shell-encrusted concrete reptile by Q. J. Ste- Other second-nesters might have occupied them- mance from his unruly chorus. He pauses to inspect book 20th-Century American Folk Art phenson (1920–1997) on the floor below was purchased by and Artists, co-written with Julia Monty and his first wife, Anne, from the artist in early selves by selecting furniture or remodeling the a collaged street scene, urban and gritty, by C. T. 1990s. An untitled drawing by Martín Ramírez (1895– kitchen. For Blanchard and Tcheyan, the challenge McClusky, a self-taught California artist who is Weissman. The Smithsonian Ameri- 1963), c. 1950, hangs to the right above an undated draw- was to arrange their collection of outsider and self- said to have worked as a circus clown. Two more can Art Museum acquired the lion’s ing by Lonnie Holley (1950–) and four watercolor picto- taught art, which Blanchard began assembling in McCluskys call out from across the room. share of Hemphill’s collection between graphs by Ben Hotchkiss (1945–), c. 1970–1980. 1984, as a syncopated summary of their own voyage First-time visitors to the Blanchard-Tcheyan 1986 and 1998. Since then, once 26 An S TiquE J uLY/AuGuST 2013 26 Fig. 5. As portraiture has long been a staple of the traditional dining room, Monty and Che thought it would be fun to hang Sumner Family, a 1960 group portrait by Jon Serl (1894–1993) that is something of a twisted take on the subject, in the dining area. To the immediate right of that painting is Untitled (Three Buses) by Martín Ramírez, c. 1950 (partially visible); and be- low, Rt. 66 out of Arizona into California, an undated colored pencil and ink on paper drawing by Joseph E. Yoakum (1890– 1972). At the upper left are a 1980s mixed-media scarecrow construction by Hawkins Bolden (1914–2005) and, to its right, near the ceiling, a mixed-media assemblage by Keith Goodhart (1956–). The architectural view above the corner cupboard is Franklin County Hall Justice by William Hawkins. The large Fig. 7. The French self- painted cardboard and wood col- taught artists Alfred lage to its right is What Peoples (1951–) and Corinne be Doin’ by Purvis Young Marié, known as A.C.M., (1943–2010), 1990. made this untitled struc- ture c. 1990 using re- Fig. 6. One of the collectors’ fa- claimed and recycled com- vorites is Eve by Herbert Single- puter and printer parts. It ton (1945–2007), carved and stands 26 inches tall. painted cedar, 20 by 30 inches. outré outsider art has steadily moved mainstream. The Blanchards moved to Manhattan in 1979. “The big names As southerners, Blanchard and his late wife felt an affinity in the Soho art scene at the time—Julian Schnabel, David Salle, for self-taught art, much of which is visionary or even overtly Robert Longo—were distant, cool, and intellectual. “What was religious and not a little of which was made by African going on in the East Village was more representational and direct, Americans, too often marginalized by poverty and lack of and more to our taste. We fell in love with a painting by Jean- formal education, recurring themes in the outsider narrative. Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) but had to pass. At several thou- From a small town in rural eastern north Carolina, Blanchard sand dollars, it was over our budget,” Blanchard says. met Anne, an Alabama native, in Boston. The couple began buying what Blanchard calls outsider art The couple combined trips home with visits to local folk in 1984, after he was introduced to it by a colleague, Phila- artists.

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